The Administration does not support House passage of H.R. 3582, the
Federal Contractor Flexibility Act. The Administration supports the
principle that a Federal agency should not specify experience and
education requirements for contractor personnel in the procurement of
information technology unless the agency otherwise cannot assure its
needs will be met without such requirements. However, the Administration
favors addressing this issue through better management practices, rather
than through the enactment of additional laws.

The Administration has been increasing its emphasis on the
implementation of performance based contracting (PBC) approaches, where
the Government identifies its requirements in terms of desired
performance objectives rather than emphasizing how the work is to be
performed. When PBC methods are used, the contractor decides how best to
address issues involving resources, such as personnel and relevant
qualifications, necessary to meet those performance objectives. The
implementation of PBC places increased emphasis on past performance
evaluations, which will enable the Government to ascertain if a company
has a proven track record for providing quality Information Technology
performance commensurate with the specified performance requirements.
Consequently, the use of PBC (which is one of the Administration's
priority management objectives), along with the consideration of past
performance during the evaluation process, should help achieve the ends
sought by H.R. 3582 by avoiding situations where agencies specify
unnecessary minimum experience and education requirements for contractor
personnel.